PolarTREC (Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating) is a program in which formal and informal educators spend 3-6 weeks participating in hands-on field research experiences in the polar regions. The goal of PolarTREC is to invigorate polar science education and understanding by bringing educators and polar researchers together.
The first Joint Antarctic School Expedition is highlighted in the spring 2014 issue of Witness the Arctic. All members of the team contributed to the article that shares their experience.
This lesson was developed to explore the dynamics of arctic sea ice from the scientific, historical, and economic perspectives. Use math and polar science to examine the impacts of seasonal shifts, climate change impacts, and modeling to understand arctic sea ice.
Application
This lesson can be taught in a variety of ways ranging from a teacher centered
The journal assignment involves students in current science research. Through the teacher’s journals, they will learn about how the research teams work together, design their research, tools that are needed and how they live and work in an extreme environment.
Objective
Students will be able to:
1. Understand how scientific research is conducted in an extreme environment
Working in groups, students will use common materials to create layers of snow and ice representing thousands of years of stratification. Groups will exchange their ice layers and extract core samples to analyze them.
Objective
Notice the phenomenon of stratification.
Notice that layers can tell a story of change over time.